'Black Mirror' Easter Eggs Will Be A Huge Part Of Season 4

One of the hallmark's of Netflix's trippy, dystopian series Black Mirror has always been that each episode presented its own self-contained story, but the creators are prepared to blow that structure up with their new season. Ok, well they aren't really getting rid of that standalone episodes structure, but showrunner Charlie Booker did reveal that for the first time in the show's history, it would be including Easter eggs in Season 4 that will connect the new episodes to some of the other stories we've gotten from the show. The Black Mirror team teased the new Easter egg twist as well as a bunch of other stuff fans can expect from Season 4 at the New York Comic Con panel on Saturday night, which Elite Daily sat in on.

In the panel, which was moderated by Jodie Foster (director of the upcoming Season 4 episode "Arkangel"), executive producers Charlie Booker and Annabel Jones revealed that the new season will include small winks to the viewers about how the new stories are actually connected to some of the episodes they've already put out. This would confirm that all the Black Mirror episodes are somehow taking place in the same (terrifying and bleak) universe. Charlie Booker laid out the new episode-connecting season by saying these Easter eggs will also help flesh out older episodes:

In this season, we do have explicit references to other episodes. We've definitely put some nods and winks to other stories and fleshed them out along the way.

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The New York Comic Con audience actually got to see one of these Easter eggs firsthand in a sneak peak of the Jodie Foster-directed episode "Arkangel," which includes a quick visual callback to the militarized video game Season 3 episode "Men Against Fire."

But the most Easter egg-filled episode of all will be the final episode of the new season, called "Black Museum." Booker gleefully shared that they "turned on the Easter egg hose" in that episode, and it includes numerous callbacks to past stories that fans of the show are sure to pick up on.

Another new aspect to Season 4 will be a bit more playfulness, as Charlie Booker put it. The showrunner admitted that with the world going through such turmoil already, he questioned how much appetite for Black Mirror's trademark bleakness there might be. He said that the new season will include "some of the most playful moments in the series." This statement also comes off the Emmy win of the Season 3 episode "San Junipero," a tender love story that was a notably uplifting departure from the show's usual domain as a psychological thriller. But if you are a fan of the horrifying stuff, fear not — Annabel Jones undercut Booker's promise by reminding fans "But this is Charlie we're talking about," and he admitted those playful moments come alongside some of the most horrific stories they've told.

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Some more info on the upcoming Season 4: The new season will include the shortest episode of the series. According to Booker and Jones, the penultimate episode "Metalhead" will clock in at only a bit over 30 minutes, making it significantly shorter than every other Black Mirror episode (which have run a wide gamut of 45-90 minutes up until now.

Despite all the exciting new information about Season 4 that Charlie Booker and Annabel Jones gave the New York Comic Con crowd, they still have not announced the exact release date. We know it's coming out before the end of the year, so just keep refreshing your Netflix account until Season 4 of Black Mirror finally drops in the next few weeks or months.